This Old House

Six years ago we had a dream: a dream to live off the land on a sustainable farm. So we bought an old, rundown farmstead and forged ahead, rose colored glasses and all. When the furnace started shooting out flames and the sewer, then the water pump amongst other major necessities, went out in the first year it was rather exciting to fix up the old place. Umpteen projects later, and the list only seems to be getting longer. We now have another dream: a dream to make the mortgage payments before something else breaks or all those sustainable farm animals run out of feed.

 

The latest project to rise to the top of the list was the girls' bedroom. We have successfully transformed most of the interior of the house into more modern accommodations, replacing the cool shag carpeting and deer paneling theme that the previous owners had worked so hard to achieve, by painting and wallpapering. But over the past couple of years the old lathe and plaster started to crack in one corner of the bedroom and then, soon after, it began falling onto unsuspecting victims in the middle of the night as they slept peacefully. The bed was eventually moved in an attempt to put off having to start yet another project until we could finish some of the current ones.

 

The plan was to remove the one section of lathe and plaster that was cracking with a piece of sheet rock and then texture it to match the rest of the room. But then there were complaints about the rough texture of the old walls, so Rob consented to scraping them all if the girls helped. Which led to exposing more cracks, which led to tearing off all of the old lathe and plaster, which led to an infestation of bees and multiple stings as two huge hives were discovered inside the walls, which led to discovering next-to-no insulation, and the need for new wiring, new insulation, and new sheet rock, which led to finishing the needed sheet rock work in the hallway and stairwell as long as we were going to have a big mess, which led to me working all the extra hours I got called in for to help pay for it.

 

The poor girls are still sleeping in the spare room, patiently waiting for a permanent place to hang their clothes rather than stacking them on the school shelves. Those images of vintage farmhouse bedrooms are still floating through their dreams as they wait for Rob to have the time to get back to working on their walls, but at least they're not interrupted by falling plaster.